About the new sponsored accounts...
Title
About the new sponsored accounts...
Short, concise description of the idea
Allow paid users the option to have '?style=mine' applied automatically to sponsored accounts.
Full description of the idea
In the wake of the announcement of the new Sponsored accounts, there's been a lot of fuss about paid users seeing the ads that are a part of a Sponsored user's layout. A large portion of the livejournal userbase has a deep-seated hatred for ads, and would prefer the option to not see them. Although paid users will not see the banner ads, there is concern that they will still be exposed to ads through the sponsored layouts.
With that in mind:
The option exists already to not see others' layouts by tossing a '?style=mine' on the end of the URL, and it has been stated that this will be respected. But not everyone is computer savvy enough to understand this, want to be bothered inserting it every time they load up LiveJournal, or want to bother removing it when they want to see someone's layout instead.
Therefore, I suggest that paid users, who paid for the privilege of not seeing ads, be able to activate an option that will automatically treat all Sponsored accounts as if they were being viewed with '?style=mine' enabled.
An ordered list of benefits
- Keep LiveJournal an adfree space for paid users, as promised.
- Lessen LJ user concerns about the new sponsored accounts.
- Provide new Paid Content functionality.
- Small loss in ad revenue.